1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to decorative glass and resin products and processes, for use in architectural design and construction.
2. Background and Relevant Art
Recent architectural designs have focused on decorative panels, such as glass or polymeric resin panels, which can be used in a wide variety of environments in a wide variety of embodiments, such as decorative windows, and as partitions in offices and homes, and so forth. In general, suitable architectural polymeric resin materials (or, “resins”) for use in decorative panels comprise polyvinyl chloride, acrylic, poly(methylmethacrylate) or “PMMA”, poly(ethylene-co-cyclohexane 1,4-dimethanol terephthalate) or “PETG”, as well as related polycarbonates.
Glass and resin materials each have a number of unique advantages that make them respectively useful for certain applications. For example, polymeric resin materials tend to be more malleable, better suited for large-scale, decorative production techniques, and less expensive than conventional glass. Resin materials are also often used in a number of applications where the appearance of glass (e.g., translucence or transparence) or other properties of glass is desired.
Conventional glass also has its own set of properties that make it a unique decorative architectural material. For example, glass has a particular optical clarity and physical rigidity that is noticeably different from many conventional polymeric resins. By contrast with resin materials, however, glass cannot ordinarily be heated and pressed using conventional thermosetting processes to include decorative objects or patterns. In particular, decorative glass tends to crack or blemish at many of the conventional temperatures and pressures that are otherwise used to set multiple resin sheets together into a single panel.
As such, one method for making a conventional, decorative glass panel comprises placing two glass sheets at opposing sides of a relatively thin decorative object, placing relatively thin two-sided tape around the peripheral edges between the two opposing glass sheets, and inserting a curable resin between the glass sheets. To pour the resin, the manufacturer perforates the tape, and pours the curable resin from top to bottom, as the glass sheets are held in an upright, vertical position. This vertical position helps the liquid resin follow the pull of gravity, and flow easily throughout the cavity between the two glass sheets. At the same time, the vertical position helps any air bubbles between the two sheets float toward the top of the pour.
Unfortunately, this method of pouring liquid resin in a vertical direction is fairly limited to thinly-spaced, opposing glass sheets (e.g., the thickness of the two-sided tape) that can be pressed against relatively flat decorative objects (e.g., the thickness of the two-sided tape, or less). That is, the vertical pour method relies in part on decorative objects that will not move when the glass sheets are held in an upright position. For example, just as any air bubbles tend to float to the top when the manufacturer pours the liquid resin in a vertical pour, the decorative object between the opposing glass sheets may slide to the bottom if it is not tightly held, or float upward on top of the resin. This may prohibit a manufacturer from attempting to suspend unevenly-sized decorative objects between opposing glass sheets.
By contrast, horizontally pouring the resin into the cavity between the opposing glass sheets, rather than pouring vertically, can create other difficulties that make conventional glass difficult to use. For example, rather than positioning the two glass sheets upright, the manufacturer may simply pour the curable liquid resin between the glass sheets as they lay flat on a support surface. Unfortunately, this horizontal position makes it difficult to adequately distribute the liquid resin throughout the space between the two opposing glass sheets evenly.
Furthermore, air bubbles are likely to be trapped between the opposing glass sheets during a horizontal pour, rather than float away to one side or another. Combined with the relatively high cost of glass, imperfections resulting from imperfect pours, or trapped air bubbles, make horizontal pours relatively impractical for large-scale manufacturing purposes. Thus, conventional glass panels are limited to being relatively thin, or having relatively thin, evenly-sized decorations included inside.
Accordingly, an advantage in the art can be realized with methods and apparatus that allow a manufacturer to create decorative glass panels that avoid one or more of the foregoing problems in the art. In particular, an advantage in the art can be realized with methods and apparatus that allow a manufacturer to include a wide variety of decorative objects, beyond simply flat, evenly-sized patterns, between opposing glass sheets.